Computer Audio Equalizer App / Program

I was trying to find some inexpensive Bluetooth headphones for my daughter, as she wants some for her b'day, but nothing pricey while she's away @ college. She's very sensitive to pressure on her ears, so they need to be completely over the ear headphones. She's also a very keen listener (she got that from me) and picky about sound quality. In some ways she's pickier than I, a lifelong audiophile, am.* This really limits choices!

For example, I'd stumbled onto a set a couple years ago that sound quite good -- when they are not generating weird "chirpy" artifacts, or just simply turning themselves off without warning. They are also more of an "on ear" type, and making connections is sometimes erratic.

Then, a few days ago, I found an over-the-ear Bluetooth stereo headphone that doesn't seem to have any awful problems except the top end is slowly rolled off. Hooked direct to my stereo, I can eq. the top octaves up a bit, and the phones sound fairly good. Then the frequency balance is acceptable, the midrange does not sound hollow, and distortion seems acceptable. The fit is ok, says my daughter, and these seem very reliable when it comes to connecting and staying that way when desired.

However, my daughter will be using these quite a bit with her laptop. To do the EQ job, I found a small* program called "Equalizer APO" (Version 1.4.2).

Well, Equalizer APO is probably a bit more complex than absolutely necessary for THIS job, but, it does have some nice features: One such is an independent volume (gain) control. That is, said gain control is independent of the gain control in the vid you are watching, such as a You Tube video. It is also independent of the Windows speaker volume control. This is quite useful, as sometimes the volume one can get out of the video (You Tube) volume control plus the Widows volume control is quite weak, and Bluetooth headphones usually seem to have weak gain, leading to low sound levels. That's a problem if you want to rock out, and I'm not talking about blowing one's eardrums out. Just provide a couple volts or so at the line level outputs.

*Note: Daughter-san's hearing is surely better than mine, as I'm 70 y/o. OTOH, I have much the greater experience in knowing what to listen for and how to both quantify and qualify it. If something sounds poor, I usually have a pretty good idea what's causing it. Daughter-san, not so much, and she sometimes struggles to give a description that could lead to such analysis. For example, she described one headphone's sound as "crunchy". But, distortion at the levels she was listening at was fairly low.

Equalizer APO provides options for a 15 band graphic equalizer, a 31 band graphic equalizer, and a 15 band "variable" equalizer, which is what some would call a "para-graphic" eq. Basically, one can vary the center frequencies of the 15 bands.

It does not provide a sharp low cut filter (sometimes called a subsonic or infrasonic filter), a high cut filter, or, so far as I can determine, parametric equalization. That last is a bit of a disappointment: Parametric eq is definitely the best for a natural sounding result, in many cases.

Now, I may be wrong about that last, as I am new to Equalizer APO. If there is a way to enable parametric eq with this app, please advise!

There is also a sidekick app named "AQUA" that works through(?) Equalizer APO. It may indeed provide true parametric equalization. I have not yet had a chance to download AQUA and try it out, but, I'll add comments here if / when I have done so.

I've also not yet tried Equalizer APO (or, obviously, AQUA) in conjunction with an app like my old fave for "simple", well, fairly simple, recording of audio: Wavosaur.

Knowledgeable persons, please comment or add information.

Thanks in advance!

My daughter and I both listen to a very wide range of music, including but not limited to classical (and other orchestral music), jazz, “acoustically driven”, and other acoustic (”non-electric”) music. Probably 50% of what I listen to is rock, and of that, much is 70’s style progressive rock, but I go a lot of other places regularly, too. :-)

This does not include that I almost subconsciously for a very long time now, simply listen to vocal characteristics of most unamplified human speech around me.

I would disagree with you slightly about classical and jazz music. IMO, in many ways, the human voice, in various settings all taken, presents the most difficult challenges of all. That’s partially because humans as a species have been so well “trained” to analyze it — (time frame dependent on your opinions about human history.)

Its true that most people don’t use that ability fully. But we all use most of it a lot. It helps us recognize different voices in a crowd, for example. (Funny story about same at the end of this post.) Or, badly altered voices, such as on a telephone.

I can readily build a subwoofer more than sufficient to accurately reproduce (except in large spaces) the biggest challenges classical music (at least before 1900 or so) can throw at it. (An exception being the 1812 Overture, but cannon are not a real “classical instrument” to anyone but Russians, I would argue.) And, granted, you’d have to give up several cubic feet in your listening room and be able to afford a very powerful amplifier. High frequencies are even easier. But, accurately reproducing the human voice naturally to the degree humans can detect flaws (or their absence) is VERY tough. (The then chief engineer at Scan Speak, and I, once upon a time had a great conversation about this, discussing their then premium 6-1/2” “woofer-midrange”.)

All this analysis of music reproduction requires a good listening room, of course. You can’t get there without that. :-)

Now, that all said, my daughter does have education and training and playing experience in a small orchestra, plus we’ve gone to some concerts involving larger, competent orchestras, in good environments. So, she has real musical training in addition to more direct experience with real time classical music than I do. (But perhaps not more as an audience member.) I have more critical analytical listening experience with audio / hi-fi systems. As in: “Hmmm... I think there’s some cone body breakup around 2400 Hz. What’s that waterfall plot look like?” She might say a headphone sounds “crunchy” in the midrange, while I would likely refer to odd order distortion. Given listening in a familiar environment, with known (and wide ranging) quality source material, I can usually estimate the response curve of a loudspeaker system and be pretty close. She can’t do that, except in a very general way. So, we somewhat “don’t connect” sometimes on the tech side of it. She might fit in with some of the old high end reviewers who would come up with terms like “chocolatey” sound. Huh?

Of course, with time, I can gain translation.

A funny story: A former boss of mine once ran a company that produced loudspeaker cones. They had a new material they were excited about, and sampled some cones to Peavey, who had begun (for a few years at that point?) manufacturing some of their drivers, such as the “Black Widow” series. Peavey’s feedback was something to the effect of “good durability, but it’s not gnarly enough.” (”Gnarly” was the Peavey guy’s actual word used.) My boss to be was stumped, as in “Huh?”. How should his company alter the formulation of the cone paper to be “more gnarly”? (Strangely, with more connection to actual musicians, I might have been able to at least point him in a general direction, but whether or not he’d be closer to Peavey’s desire, after several new samplings, is anybody’s guess.)

Ditto for classical. I was once confronted with: It (new driver) sounds really good overall, but, the trombones don’t sound brassy enough. I related this to my boss (an older and “more conventional” engineer who’d become completely busy with management), who paused, and then said (paraphrasal): “Well... Like... What the hell do you do with that?” My reply was “**Stronger expletive** if I know...” (Pause) “Dive deeper into analyzing the old driver, I guess...”. I never figured it out and the prospective customer ran into financial trouble anyway. My best guess(!) B4 I was told our prospective customer was failing (and to desist efforts for them) was cone breakup that triggered some “nice” 2nd - 6th even order harmonic resonances.

FWIW, both of those “incidents” were triggered by the EPA forcing cone manufacturers in the USA to alter how the manufacturers made their cone bodies. :-(

Back to “listening training”: Lifelong experience counts! I have had the blessing (until recently) of always being a member of churches that had exceptionally good acoustics. My first house and “my room” at my parents before that were also unusually good in that regard. (Ok, @ the parents, low bass support was weak, so I built some fairly amazing - and big - transmission line speakers!) However, I’m NOT good at picking voices out of chaotic, loud environments. Riding around in jeepneys in Philippines with my wife, she could understand what the driver, way up front, was calling out. Between the accents and other noise around me, I couldn’t even tell it was the driver calling out the stop! So much for my “great ears”!

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